October 4, 2010 archive

A couple of items I found interesting from “comments” and “letters” sections on the web.

It’s not just an American problem, score big blogospheric points by accurately identifying the nation this letter is about!  And no, it’s not the US, but then, it could be a lot of countries, couldn’t it?

The _____ government has got it wrong again, but the clue to why is not in the “dozy government” line. It is hidden in your quote that “the elite directing the _____ economy is more tightly closed than an oyster shell”. _____ operates like a one-party state and the government is just the political wing of that elite comprising developers, bankers and newspaper owners, with a whole network of vested interests descending into almost every corner of the _____ state and economic life.

Your answer here.

___________________________________________________________________

And a rant about our general system failure by a commenter at Chris Floyd’s blog who offers the forlorn hope that eventually the plunderers will have nobody to plunder but themselves; use of the term ouroboros always worms its way into my heart.

A fatal cancer has spread in the body politic, metastasized to all parts, no organ remains untouched. The corruption of politics and government, of law and the courts, of education and the schools. Warning was given and separation of secular self-direction from self-righteous belief was instituted, a wall was built and accepted as correct for some generations until one generation came along, in glorious, arrogant ignorance, was set upon and dismantled, manipulated by devious politicians to their own ends. Those ends, the access to power that their ideology would not support otherwise. Masters of marketing and mendacity, they gained the keys to the treasury and converted the nation from being a creditor to a debtor, whilst devouring every asset they could set their hands to, depleting the accumulated wealth built for generations, held in trust for those generations to come. All is gone now, only the insurance to ease the aged remains. That will not be intact for long, the appetite of power must be fed.

Absolute power has corrupted absolutely. However, that power, as great as it is cannot sustain itself, it will consume everything in its path until there is nothing left but itself and it will turn on itself in the end, an ouroboros. Like the monkey trap, this creature’s grasp on the fruits of power will not allow its escape from the trap and it becomes prey to greater forces that will destroy it, if it doesn’t eat itself first.

Until this comes to pass, the corruption of power is complete and collapse of power is inevitable. In politics and in government, in law and in the courts there is no place to place the fulcrum required to operate the leaver of change. Power has become the end in and of itself, it can no longer direct the affairs of state or the welfare of citizens.

We have been talking about sustainability recently, and one of the resources in most jeopardy is fresh water.  In the United States the freshwater problem is becoming more and more significant, and in many parts of the world it is already desperate.  We shall look at some of the methods used to purify nonpotable water tonight.

First of all, we need to understand what kind of water we are purifying.  It ranges in quality from surface or ground freshwater, requiring only minor treatment to eliminate microbes that might cause disease (the vast majority of drinking and industrial water in the United States comes from these sources), all the way to seawater, with lots of intermediate kinds.